He
by TopKat
Summary: 'Remus tells his mother. Sirius tells the only man he thinks could understand.' Remus/Sirius. Marauders post-hogwarts


Telling

Delilah Lupin's farmhouse had gone unchanged for almost twenty years. But for dust and wear and tear the cushions remained covered with homemade knitted covers; the walls still hung low, beams still crossed the ceilings, stark black. It still smelt like Sunday dinners all week long; most of all, his mother still lived there, old now but still small, still with her bobbed hair, her pragmatic, hurried movements, her constant questions about his health. Now, though, she sat across from him, staring at her own hands.

"Remus, I love you,"

"But?" he'd known as soon as the words left his mouth that it was a mistake. Her wavering, worried tone only confirmed it.

"But I don't understand why - why you're trying to make things harder on yourself."

Remus nodded, feeling anger curl itself around his shoulders. He clenched his fists helplessly. He'd been naïve. Desperately so. He'd come over here in on a cloud, not caring a whit what she thought, forgetting that just because he was feeling joy did not mean that his mother would understand; or that he could cope with her reaction. He looked at his hands, then up at her face.

"I'm not." He stopped, and breathed through his annoyance. Self control, luckily, was something he'd learnt from a young age. He'd never been so angry with his mother; had always got along with her, though he'd been more similar to his dad. He'd thought, mistakenly, that this would just be a formality. A funny story to tell later on. Now he worried that it would be the single gulf between them. In the midst of this war, it was not a happy thought. "I'm not trying to make things harder for myself, Mum. I'm not doing this on purpose."

She shook her head. "Remus, are you sure…" she trailed off, and reached for his hand across the table. He let her take it. "Remus, you're only twenty, and your father – just last year – are you sure you're not… confused?"

He laughed in surprise. "Oh, god. This was a mistake. I'm so sorry, mum. Forget I told you, I-"

"Remus-"

"No. No, I've got to go." He was laughing still, but the touch of hysteria was clearly unnerving his mother; she stared at him. "I shouldn't have – I'm going to go home."

He went to the door and hovered with his hand over the doorknob stupidly, hoping that she would stop him; she flinched when he used the word 'home' to describe the flat. "Remus." She said quietly. "I just don't want you to ruin your life for something that might not last. You don't have any control over – what you are – but you can control this. I'm just worried that this is only going to ostracise you further."

"We're careful." He sighed. "No one knows."

She pushed herself up from her chair and crossed the room to meet him. She wrapped her arms around his reluctant shoulders.

"I love you." She said quietly. She sounded exhausted. "I do. And if this is what you need to be happy – if this makes you happy – then so be it." Her breath shuddered through her. She pulled away from him, her hands on his shoulders, and looked up at him. "I'm just asking you to think about what it is that you're doing. About what it would mean if people knew."

"I'm sorry, mum." And he was.

"I love you." She said again, like she was convincing herself more than anyone else. "No matter what."

"I'm going to go." He told her, and pulled out of her grasp. "I, er, I love you too. I'm sorry." The words were wrong; he was sorry, but not that he was in love; he was sorry that she'd given her life, her husband, her marriage, for a son who could never be normal. He was glad, for the first time, that his dad was no longer around.

Closing the door behind him, he did not apparate immediately. Instead, he walked all the way down the path; out of the garden from his childhood. He went out to the fields in front of their house, to the forest that stood silently on the edge of another farmer's land. He stood on the border between the field and the forest, his hands in his pockets, and looked into the trees. Here was where, as a six year old boy, he'd left the house for in the middle of the night. Where he'd walked for a reason he could no longer recall, under the full moon. Where his mother had found him, hours later.

He touched one of the trees for the first time in fourteen years, and felt suddenly entirely lost.

XxX

"Merlin, boy! I haven't seen you in years!"

Sirius grinned at his uncle, sat across from him in a chintz armchair, scanning the flat with the same strange pride he felt for Alphard in general. "I like what you've done with the place." He said, only half-teasing, impressed. Alphard might have been the antagonist of the majority of Black family reunions (a title only recently given over to Sirius himself) but he made being flamboyant an art. The flat was charmed to be huge, palatial; every surface lay draped over every other one, sumptuous, like the Arabian brothels from the old muggle movies Remus refused to explain his affinity for. It was starkly old-fashioned but in a self-conscious way, and Sirius made a mental note to tease Remus for having the same taste in films as his luvvie uncle.

"Alright, Alf?" He stood and hugged his uncle tightly around the middle, not missing how the last five years had pressed weight upon his uncle's now middle-aged frame. Alphard held him at arm's length.

"You're a man now!"

Sirius nodded sheepishly; he didn't feel like one. Even being around relatives he liked often made him feel like he was eleven again, standing in his parents' parlour whilst uncles and aunties impressed upon him the importance of getting into slytherin. It was a difficult feeling to shake. "Yeah." He twisted out of Alphard's grip good-naturedly, and they sat opposite one another. "How've you been, Alf?"

Alphard's face darkened noticeably. "I've been well."

Sirius looked around. "-Where's Landon?"

Alphard smiled bitterly. "At home, I expect."

"You're not-?"

"No." he said sadly, but shrugged. "It's been a good two years, now."

Sirius gaped. Landon and his uncle had been together so long that one without the other seemed paradoxical. "You didn't say anything in your letters."

Another shrug. "It didn't seem appropriate." He pushed himself back on the soft sofa, spreading his arms over the back. Sirius always admired the way that his uncle's every move seemed to suit him, when on any other human it would look ridiculous. "You were busy getting yourself burned off the tapestry and moving around – I loved the motorbike by the way, did I say? – you don't want to hear the woes of an old fool like me."

"How did it happen?"

His uncle waved his hand at the wrist vaguely. "We drifted. I loved him. But sometimes you just get to an age where you can't live the same life you've been living anymore. We were being silly. It was always going to end."

The words didn't make sense. Alphard and his partner had always been Sirius' favourite relatives, even when he didn't understand what they were; the two of them would go to any lengths to embarrass Walburga, to make the Black children smile. They'd always bought gifts together, and they'd always been the highlight of Sirius' Christmas. They had bought Sirius his first proper racing broom after he got into Gryffindor, and had continued to get things for Regulus, even when he took after his mother and said spiteful things about them to his vile, obsequious friends. "But you loved him, right?"

"It wasn't enough."

"How could it not be?"

Alphard laughed and Sirius felt like a small child again. "Sirius, love. Why all the questions?" he raised one eyebrow. Sirius looked at his uncle and realized suddenly that he was just as changed as the flat. Alphard, once a slender, commanding presence; once a man whom Sirius sought to emulate for his ability to capture a room's attention (inanimate objects included), still had his dark hair (dyed, now), his tailored robes, the kitschy souvenirs he'd bought from all over the world that littered his home – but his skin was sallow, his jaw swollen with age and abuse. That once handsome, admirable face was the face of a man who had made himself alone.

"I came to tell you something." He said decisively, because he had; because he wasn't ready to tell James or Lily or Peter, and he'd been sure that Alphard would understand, but also because he'd missed him terribly. Letters weren't enough.

"You fell in love." Alphard said wisely, his face ridden with guilt. "I'm so sorry, Sirius. I didn't mean – my situation is different."

"Maybe." Sirius said quietly, stricken by the idea that what he felt would not be enough. He had assumed, perhaps unwisely, that love would protect him; that something so painful, something he'd struggled through like this would be worth it. He'd always taken Alphard and his partner as proof that even a love everyone was against could survive the test of time simply because it was real, and here it was, the remnants of it, shattered before him like glass. "But. Yes. That was what I was going to tell you. I had to tell someone."

"Oh, Sirius." Alphard sighed. "You'll be different." he said assuredly, nodding, eyebrows furrowed. "You're a wonderful boy. You'll – it won't be like that for you. You're – you're young. You have everything." Shame crossed his face, but only for a fleeting second. He caught himself.

"I don't get it, Alf."

"Sometimes it's just the way things are." Alphard shrugged. "Let's not talk about it." He said, suddenly sharp. His expression softened when Sirius, taken aback, looked at the floor. "You have your whole life. Things aren't the same for you as they were for us." He frowned. "I assume you came here because he's a he."

Sirius, embarrassed, nodded sheepishly. "There was no one else."

His uncle smiled but it was patronizing, tinged with the sadness people reserve for fools. "Thankyou." He said in earnest, though the smile remained. He laughed, then. "I'm relieved. Before you were born I assumed there wouldn't be any more Blacks like me."

"There won't be, Alf. Neither of us have kids; we can't pass our influence on."

"We can be uncles, though, love."

"There's always that. Although I can't see Regulus producing anything I'd want to associate with."

Alphard shrugged. "Maybe he'll surprise you. My sister surprised me."

"Maybe." Sirius slowly stood. "I have to go. I'm sorry it hasn't been long, but there's a curfew in London now, ever since the attacks, I –"

Alphard nodded. "And you're going back to him."

"He told his mother today."

Alphard tried to control his wince. "Go. I understand." He stood, his brightly coloured robes rising off the sofa slightly after him, and embraced Sirius. And Sirius still felt like a child but he held him back, at once glad and disappointed that this man was his hero.

"I love you, Alf." He mumbled into his uncle's robes. Alphard laughed.

"Don't be like that, Sirius. People will think we're poofs."


End file.
